Does “crazy” lead groups or do groups lead “crazy?”

To hear of mass death within abusive cult groups is not a rarity. However, when said groups use deception as a tool to guide those members towards what Jim Jones said was “the last orgasm” I begin to wonder if we see charismatic leaders as the deceptors or perhaps our society as the ultimate tyrant. Jim Jones, of The Jonestown Massacre, began his life as a religious man of the midwest. He familiarized himself with positions of power from a young age. In his early 20’s he opened the doors of one of the only diverse churches at the time to people of all walks of life. Coming at a time buried in controversy, a gathering space that welcomed diverse racial groups formed a type of oasis with Jones at the center of the idealistic vision as the friendly savior. It seemed as if he kept this title and transformed it into a complex as he not so quietly built his empire of loyal followers. Moving to San Francisco, almost a decade later, he would be seen in clubs partying with people who would later listen to his sermons and pay all of their respects to him with their lives. He began speaking at his Peoples Temple, which was endorsed by many northern california liberals whose age ranged from very young to very old.

Many believed he would save them from each specific hardship they had been faced with. Believing, full-heartedly, in a man who they knew only stories of 1,000 or so people flocked to their new home in Guyana where they could live peacefully for the rest of life on Earth. Jones often spoke of taking his life with joy because he knew Jesus Christ was waiting for him. As he gained power he began including his followers when speaking of suicidal tendencies. He manipulated the people who cared about him most not only by physically torturing them, but more than once playing mind games with them. He set up, what everyone thought was, a drink containing a poison that would kill them. To prove loyalty they would drink the mixture, although if they hesitated the deadly liquid would be forced into them. Only later, when they hadn’t all collapsed, did they recognize that Jones was only invoking fear in them to test their sense of commitment. Unbeknown to anyone else Jones had been shipping in off brand Kool Aid and cyanide so he could conduct an actual murder suicide. He uttered similar words to these often, “We didn’t commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world.” He administered the lethal batch in the same way he did when he conducted his previous loyalty test, with misplaced joyous words and comfortable smiles shared between him and his disciples. This event killed over 900 people going down in history as the largest mass suicide and largest loss of Americans due to non-natural disaster related effects.

The United States Government was ultimately fearful of individuals accessing so much power after these casualties took place. People spoke of The Jonestown Massacre as a terribly embarrassing moment in history. Linked to this is the stigma of mental health. Jones committed this terror on his own and should not be forgiven, but he embodied a stigmatized part of society that in the 60s and 70s was kept in darkness. Outsiders often build resistance towards flourishing establishments. In this case Jones saw society as something to build a cult against. The people who craved worship, but weren’t allowed to partake fled to him.

Time elapsed and our culture moved on. However in the past few decades media and pop culture have licensed the story as their own and began using it at free will. Associating an icon, like Jones, with the outsiders we see in TV and in our favorite bands has implications of positivity while the original event was nothing less than a tragedy.

Parents re-coined the term “Don’t drink the Kool Aid” referring to staying out of trouble. Our parents know we aren’t going to go drink poisoned juice, but it has acted as a “be careful” sentiment for years.

In the 90s an explosive crowd of groupies followed The Brian Jonestown Massacre around the world to hear their favorite songs performed and their insane frontman takeover the stage. Their fan following was rather cult-like in itself which you can see in the documentary made by and with them called Dig.

The newest season of American Horror Story focused on cults. The main character of the show began the season with an already weak mental state that rapidly deteriorated to a point in which he embodied Jim Jones and even had the loyalty test administered to his deviant followers and minions.

In class we spent a day focusing on Durkheim's theory of social deviance. The opposite of this is social control which is essentially the rules we all base our morals off of. This can be exemplified in our interactions with strangers on the road, allowing others the right to take their turn across the street even if it doesn’t directly benefit us in that situation. Also shown in the ways we speak to our closest friends and family. Of course once we become comfortable the boundaries between what is socially acceptable and what is not get smaller and smaller. However, it is normally seen as socially deviant if we blatantly disregard someone’s beliefs or subject them to torture. We don’t do that because we have these unwritten rules. Durkheim says that when someone goes against these rules “a gash forms in the social fabric” which can only be repaired through punishment or rehabilitation. In the case of Jim Jones, he wasn’t socially deviant to begin with. He had good intentions of helping groups come together. Although he later led these people towards suicide, he developed his deviance through obtaining too much power. He of course died along with his followers so he could neither be punished nor rehabilitated, however when we see this type of behavior now we often send people to clinicians. This forms a space in between punishment and rehabilitation.

I believe that the “crazy” we see in cult leaders or celebrities or teenagers with anger management issues isn’t a product of their own, but one of the society we all live in. It is in fact crazy making. I hope that we as sociologists and our peers as psychologists can form a new comfortable arena for those struggling.